South Carolina does not get much snow, but we are certainly experiencing some cold weather this week.
I wanted to share this wonderful article about our talented red foxes. Robert Krulwich of NPR wrote a blog entitled 'You're Invisible but I'll Eat You Anyway. Secrets of Snow-Diving Foxes'
"Listening With A Compass"
"First, a fox hears
something. She gets really quiet and tilts her ears. (You see this on
the video — her head shifts, she concentrates.) She waits. There's
another sound."
"Think about this ... an ordinary fox can stalk a mole, mouse, vole or
shrew from a distance of 25 feet, which means its food is making a
barely audible rustling sound, hiding almost two car lengths away. And
yet our fox hurls itself into the air — in an arc determined by the fox,
the speed and trajectory of the scurrying mouse, any breezes, the
thickness of the ground cover, the depth of the snow — and somehow (how?
how?), it can land straight on top of the mouse, pinning it with its
forepaws or grabbing the mouse's head with its teeth."
Blog:
YouTube video of fox diving:
Please visit our own red foxes at the Lowcountry Zoo. They have not had the opportunity to learn snow-diving, but we like them anyway!
These red foxes are so beautiful right now with their Winter coats.
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